The Glass Ceiling

A Poem inspired by the film "The Visitor"

Love is something that happens
to someone else.
Until it happens.
In which case we’re all involved.
The case in which we carry
our wounds –
scabs inside, fresh pus, blood,
plasma without –
breaks the moment we let
love inside
breathe.

Let love breathe, I say.
If it founder in impossibility,
it shows us how to try anyway
so our imps
of base feelings ossify
and only their scars remain.

Briefly, papers fall out of the case
creased, scattering in the wind.

You can chase them.

But if you catch one, look at it closely.

Words, bloodied and paled
on pages too barren for speech.

Signs, showing you the way
to forget. To fulfil promises
without remembering them.

Ba-lance-head

Elephant Island

An Homage to India

I have received an increasing number of readers from South Asia. I have long since received hits from Korea, mostly because of my stint of teaching English there. But an increasing number of people in India are visiting my website, and for that I thank them. This is a dedication to my Indian readers, especially those who may or may not be affiliated with the 50 million-strong Communist Party in India.

Please bookmark this page and come back often. I update it about once a week. Also, as usual, I ask that you please visit the sponsors listed at the top and bottom of the page. I put a lot of work into this blog, and these advertisements are a way to get reimbursed (however slightly) for this work. It really doesn't take that much time...

Thank you all.

One Line Missing

It's quiet nights like this, as bumptious
blue lights flicker across curtains suggesting
northern lights, on streets of narrow houses in a row,
with wind disappearing and the smell of sewers
weaving up into air above steel grates; it's quiet
nights like this that remind me of those evenings
of boredom on endless couches in front of televisions,
when hands slip into your
boxer shorts, bedspread allocating
a radius of warmth difficult to resist, and fingers find
the damp curvatures of desire,
torsos wasting away, growing alongside mould
in tv dinner packaging
cluttering the surface of a chestnut coffee table,
under the natter of roommates upstairs gossiping.

Turning on to Bloor, full of drunken celebrants
giggling, arms linked, lights glinting off passing cars,
I avoid the eyes of passers-by, and keep focussed.
This has to be done. It has to end.

Words string themselves together to make sense
of mental decay, of the lead weights attached to our
ankles, attached to each other, fixtures
on each other's walls, sconces hiding burnt-
out light bulbs, words that fill the silence
in which lives the fear that you will be relieved

by the cut line.

Competitive Salary!

So the Goodwill on Roncesvalles is hiring. They are offering a competitive salary. Competitive with what? How on earth can a salary be competitive? Ok, got it. It's the company that is competing with other companies. Right, they're just copying this grammatical idiocy from everyone else. Shouldn't blame them, right? Gotta beat that Sally Anne, you know. For those of you just hopping aboard the S.S. thrift shop, Sally Anne is the Salvation Army. Cuz your soul is in jeopardy, you know, and the poor are mostly fools.

Who really cares if your salary is competitive? The Indiana Pacers are competitive, but they suck. They round out the bottom of the NBA on a regular basis. My question to you, Goodwill, is are you winning? It's a battle for souls out there, and is your will good enough to hunt the top prize? Are you ready to round out your days with right hooks to your St. Vincent de Paul neighbours?

Jesus was a Pinko

Death in the Family

when you told me, i was unprepared
knife put down, pared apple rolling
across the counter, falling in the
sink.

she died on a tuesday

somehow the shock wears off enough
for tears to run their runneled
course down my face.

but this was a week later.

you ask me what happened
in that week.
i don't know.

novocaine routine. wake up.
miss breakfast. make coffee.
pee in the toilet. wonder where grief ends.
lie still. don't think too hard. it hurts.
sleep.

finally, fast broken, an apple's skin
parts under my teeth.
it's juice jumps up
into my eye.

my seeing-eye dog whimpers in the corner.

Turtle Soup

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The Happening

I went to see The Happening last night, courtesy of my rockin' dentist Arthur Kamin who gives me a $25 cineplex gift card every time I refer a client to him. Of course, I read the NOW magazine review first, and in hindsight, after having seen the movie, I wonder how in tarnation the reviewer missed the parodic elements of this movie. Not a new concept: this is obvious. It follows close on the heels (run for the hills!) of other apocalypse movies such as Cloverfield, 28 days later, 28 Weeks Later, The Mist, The War of the Worlds, and others. But really, who cares about originality when you can have knowing winks, intentionally flat acting to make you wonder what's the real difference between the zombies and the normals (there's none, really), and overly dramatic music that contrapuntally lambastes the banal repartee.

M. Night Shymalan has crafted an underhanded classic in my opinion. All the "bad aspects" of the film, he has somehow recuperated into a work of subtle parody. The NOW reviewer complained of a lack of story. What apocalypse movie has a "story." It's the end of the world for chrissake. People go crazy. Narrative loses its importance in the face of mere survival. The randomness of the beginning and end of this environmental crisis complements the vagueness of the title. Those that survive, like in 28 days later, have to reform the family unit along non-biological lines. While Shymalan breaks the rules of the apocalypse film by refusing to divulge the true cause of it, among the many explanations given, he favours one with a Janus-faced nature: one of ecological catastrophe, and a flaky, but grand plant response to imminent ecological catastrophe. It is telling that Shymalan opposes this explanation to the government conspiracy theory at the end, as shown on a TV debate between an expert warning of human hubris and a host who sides with the government conspiracy explanation, taking a facile fourth estate position. This is basically a confrontation between current left and right political tendencies. The left urges responsible ecological business practises, while ultimately, any conspiracy theory ends up serving the purposes of the Right, by making the government seem more omnipotent than they actually are.

I give "The Happening" three and a half out of five stars. Even though some people were complaining about it after the movie let out, it made people laugh with both ridiculous banalities and over-the-top gore, and at points it freaked them out. That said, Shymalan should stop trying to be Alfred Hitchcock. He's good, but he'll never live up to the master... Both this movie and The Mist owe a heavy debt to The Birds. Luckily, The Happening comes out on the correct and true side of the political spectrum, whereas The Mist has some disturbing rightest tendencies.

Here's what others liked about my blog

Here are the top three visited posts on my blog, at least for the last three months. I have provided links in case you're interested. Please bookmark my blog and visit often!

Drum Roll please:

1. http://theinvisibletruth.blogspot.com/2007/06/out-of-control-desire-to-win.html
2. http://theinvisibletruth.blogspot.com/2006/08/small-face-lovely-breast.html
3.. http://theinvisibletruth.blogspot.com/2006_06_01_archive.html

Have a ball!

Penguin Sculpture

Haiku of Bling

Tarnished silver ring
Reaches ear, tellingly clear
Waiting for its jewel

The Taj Mahal in a Bubble

My first piece of video art. (The other one didn't count).

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The Dance Part II

The Dance